Ignazio "Harold" Bordonaro's actual or estimated year of birth is 1927 -- see https://www.evernote.com/shard/s229/sh/0...1c13e1f86c90d9.

Had he still been alive, he would have been as old as 90 years old at the end of this year. Who is this other Harold Bordonaro who bears the same name as the individual cited in the first Evernote item to which I linked? who bears a similar name? Harold Bordonaro sometimes went by "Harold Vincent Bordonaro" and "Harry Bordonaro."

The American mafia debated the issue of dual membership after the Castellammarese war ended. The issue was specifically about whether made members of a cosca in Sicily could simultaneously be made members of an American mafia family. A decision was made: Dual membership was forbidden. Transfer from a Sicilian mafia family to an American mafia family was always permitted, with the understanding that the mafioso could transfer back to his Sicilian mafia family. (I think the reverse is also true but I can't come up with an example. Nick Gentile had transferred back and forth a few times.) Permission would be required by the individual who transferred, as he had to have the okay of his boss in Sicily via a letter. In North America, simultaneous dual membership -- had it been permitted and ongoing -- would have been problematic for many reasons, one of which would be the difficulty the mafioso would have in meeting the requirement that a made member show absolute obedience to the boss. To which boss would he demonstrate this unequivocal obedience? If the mafioso transferring to an American LCN family was on excellent terms with his superior back home, then of course the other big problem would be tribute -- to which one individual are you kicking up your earnings?

I'm not sure why an American LCN family would make an exception for a 'ndrangheta member who sought simultaneous membership in the LCN family. For example, had Paolo Violi not been made into the Bonanno Family, he might have been made into the Buffalo Family. If he had been formally inducted into the 'ndrangheta in Sinopoli, elsewhere in Calabria, or in Canada before he became a made Bonanno, why would the Bonanno Family boss tell him at the time of induction that Violi could be a made man in both the 'ndrangheta and the American LCN? If Nick Rizzuto Sr. had been formally inducted into his father-in-law's cosca in Sicily, why would the Bonanno Family not insist on Rizzuto's relinquishing his membership in the cosca back home? As has sometimes been said over the years by other posters on these OC forums, you can't have two fathers.

Yes, I'm aware that there have been instances in Italy of significantly powerful made men who, already belonging to one of the three large secret societies ('ndrangheta, Camorra, Cosa Nostra), were then made into another of these secret societies, just as I'm aware of the historical evidence that, in Italy, made members of the 'ndrangheta, Camorra, and Siclian mafia are recognized as one and the same, i.e., they are all uomini d'onore.

When Paolo Violi had discussions with the Sicilian-born Carmelo Salemi and Giuseppe Cuffaro, sometimes in person at the Reggio Bar and sometimes over the phone -- and sometimes with the Sicilian-born Pietro Sciara present in meetings -- Violi was making clear that if a Sicilian mafioso from a Sicilian cosca wanted to operate as a made man in Montreal, that Sicilian mafioso would 1) transfer to the Cotroni organization, which was a crew of the Bonanno Family, and 2) undergo a probationary period of five years before being permitted to do so, i.e., transfer to the Cotroni crew as a made man operating in Montreal. It was this second condition to which the Sicilians objected, but Violi was merely enforcing American LCN rules.